Results of a recent scientific study of mice at the University of Louisiana at Monroe suggest oleocanthal rich extra virgin olive oil deserves to be designated a "medical food." Researchers led by Dr. Amal Kaddoumi demonstrated for the first time that this type of olive oil can treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice when used in their daily diet.

In 2014, Eftihis Androulakis decided to transform the traditional work of generations of family members into a small, cutting-edge olive oil business. He called it Pamako after the linear B ideograms for “medicine,” a good choice since his organic, high phenolic extra virgin olive oil has won awards for both its health benefits and its quality and flavor.

This is the revised first edition of a list that should grow very long. It focuses on where to buy Greek extra virgin olive oils that have been bottled and branded in Greece, since these are both high quality, healthy olive oils that have their flavor sealed into bottles near their harvest site, and olive oils that bring much-needed added value to Greece.

Welcome to Greek Liquid Gold: Authentic Extra Virgin Olive Oil! This independent, unofficially non-profit website is designed to provide more up-to-date information about Greek extra virgin olive oil than English speakers have ever found on one site. Here, you will learn why many Greeks borrow a phrase from the epic poet Homer, “liquid gold,” to describe the precious juice of the olive fruit.

Since January 1, a new law in Greece has mandated that the olive oil on restaurant tables be served in sealed, non-refillable or disposable, properly labeled bottles instead of the refillable glass containers commonly used in the past. Greek olive oil industry experts hail this change as beneficial for both consumers and the Greek olive oil world.

In olive oil producing countries such as Greece, tourists can wander through olive groves all year, observing the summer growth of olives, their autumn harvest, the winter landscapes, the new spring branches, leaves, and blossoms, and the cycle’s annual repetition. We can see people and nature working together to make Greek liquid gold in its homeland.

Selected Greek extra virgin olive oils have been recognized as some of the most highly awarded olive oils in the world because of their success in international olive oil competitions in 2017. Greek olive oil companies view these distinctions as an affirmation of their teams’ hard work, passion, and continuous endeavors to produce high quality olive oil.

Six Greek early harvest organic extra virgin olive oils won prizes at the first international competition of the 2017/18 harvest year in the northern hemisphere, Biolnovello, in early December. Greek extra virgin olive oils captured two silver awards and four extra golds at this competition, which will be followed by the BIOL International Prize in March.

Olive oil is good for us--so good that it is considered both a healthy food and a delicious medicine! There are so many articles about the scientific evidence for the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil that it’s hard to keep track of them. Here is an overview, followed by links to the best, clearest, most useful recent articles I’ve read.

Archaeologist Anaya Sarpaki explains in On the Olive Routes that olive trees have existed longer than modern humans. For example, wild olive leaf fossils from the Greek island of Evia date back 23 million years. At Santorini, 37,000 to 50,000 year old leaf fossils from the olive species Olea europaea have been discovered in the volcanic crater.

What is agrotourism? How does it overlap with food tourism? What good is it? We can explore these questions with examples from Greece, one of the European countries trying to expand tourism beyond the beaches and the summer. With its wealth of olive oil, wine, and fresh produce, the Greek countryside reveals the secrets of traditional healthy Greek cuisine.

When he led the famous Seven Countries Study that inspired worldwide interest in the Mediterranean diet, Ancel Keys was astonished to see Cretans’ food swimming in olive oil. He decided that was a good idea, and eventually much of the rest of the world caught on, although most countries still lag behind Greece in their olive oil consumption.

This year, a Greek law requires restaurants to replace the refillable olive oil containers on their tables with sealed, non-refillable or disposable, properly labeled bottles. Offering various bottles to restaurants, Greek olive oil companies are ready to showcase the high quality and health benefits of appropriately packaged Greek extra virgin olive oil.

Many Greek olive oil companies welcome schoolchildren to their mills, bottling plants, and tasting rooms to learn about olive oil production, export, history, taste, uses, and health benefits. Last year, Terra Creta went farther, hiring a teacher to develop a specialized experiential learning program for kindergarten and elementary school students in Crete.

You can make this vegan recipe using more or less of various ingredients, including spinach, depending on your preference. You can even use the spinach stems left over after you’ve made something else with the spinach leaves. I prefer to make the dish healthier using wholegrain brown rice, but that must be cooked separately given its longer cooking time.

What kind of olive oil is it? That depends. In the USA, it is often described as extra virgin olive oil, olive oil, or light-tasting olive oil. On the other hand, the International Olive Council (IOC) discusses more different designations. Like many other organizations, the IOC focuses on the difference between virgin olive oils and non-virgin olive oils.

This is a revision of a traditional Greek olive oil and orange juice cookie with less sugar, more whole wheat flour, more orange zest, and more spices than the original. Very tasty, it is appropriate for certain types of fasting as well as for vegans, those seeking to lower their cholesterol, and health-conscious eaters who enjoy a slightly sweet treat.

At a workshop for Greek olive oil producers in Chania, Crete, Dr. Prokopios Magiatis and Dr. Eleni Melliou of the University of Athens discussed the health benefits of important phenols in olive oil, as well as the economic benefits some of the healthiest extra virgin olive oils in the world could bring their producers and the steps required to make them.

The world’s first independent English-language website about Greek olive oil is celebrating its birthday today. It features the stories of a Greek ship captain turned olive farmer, an Italian computer programmer producing olive oil in Greece, an ancient Greek teacher selling olive oil with edible gold flakes, and many other Greeks in the olive oil world.

The Mediterranean diet is a healthy, tasty diet and lifestyle associated with communities near certain parts of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Greek island of Crete, based on the way the locals typically ate before the 1960s. The American professor Ancel Keys led the first major study of the health benefits of this diet in the 1950s.

Olives enter the olive receiving area on conveyor belts for separation from leaves and branches and then enter the mill. They may be washed either outside or inside the mill. In both traditional and modern mills, olives are ground or crushed into a paste which is pressed or churned to release oil that must then be separated from other liquids and solids.

Harvest time, method, and duration vary according to a number of factors, but harvesting tends to be labor intensive in Greece due to the country’s rocky, hilly, and mountainous terrain. Since ripening time varies according to the olive variety and location (including elevation), the harvest does not occur at the same time in all parts of Greece.

There are hundreds of varieties of olive trees, some used mainly for table olives and others generally dedicated to olive oil. Olive oil types are defined differently in North America and Europe, but extra virgin is widely considered the best. Olive oils differ in taste, quality, and health benefits based on a number of variables:

Greece typically produces the third largest amount of olive oil in the world, after Spain and Italy—around 300,000 metric tons per year. Greeks consume more olive oil per capita than anyone else in the world—almost 13 kilograms annually in 2013-14 according to the International Olive Council (IOC), and even more in certain regions.